Robinet, in his treatise De la nature, worked out the same conception of a gradation in organic existence, connecting this with a general view of nature as a progress from the lowest inorganic forms of matter up to man.

He prepares the way, too, for a doctrine of evolution by his monistic idea of the substantial similarity of all things, inorganic and organic, bodily and spiritual, and still more by his conception of a perfect gradation of existence from the lowest " inanimate " objects, whose essential activity is confused representation, up to the highest organized beingman - with his clear intelligence.'